36^th Annual Sarasota Jazz Festival set for March 6-12

Internationally acclaimed musicians fill Sarasota with exciting jazz;

Star-studded festival presents big bands & combos, young & not-so-young performers,

Jazz Trolley, Patron Package and prestigious Satchmo in free and ticketed events

Headliners for four evening concerts include Howard Alden, Wycliffe Gordon,

Dick Hyman, John Lamb, Russell Malone, Ken Peplowski, Byron Stripling

Sarasota, FL—The 36^th Annual Sarasota Jazz Festival is ready to swing, says Peg Pluto, president of the Jazz Club of Sarasota. “We’re really excited about our star-studded line-up, with acclaimed musicians playing at every evening concert. Even more exciting is the fact that almost every one of these wonderful musicians have played for us before, some of them quite often. One of our all-stars, the spectacular Dick Hyman, has been with the Jazz Club from its very beginnings. This Festival is a homecoming for them and us.” The Festival runs from March 6-12  in Sarasota, Florida. This year’s lineup—listed below—includes some of the world’s greatest guitarists, along with acclaimed pianists, bassists, drummers and reed and horn players.

The Sarasota Jazz Festival is a mix of free and ticketed concerts by international stars and local musicians at Riverview Performing Arts Center and a variety of downtown Sarasota venues for a trolley-based night of club-hopping. As it has done every year since 1987, the Club will also present its highest honor, the Satchmo Award, to one of the world’s great jazz musicians for a “Unique and Enduring Contribution to the Living History of Jazz, Our Original American Art Form.” At the concert on March 11 Bob Seymour, honorary Jazz Club board member and director of jazz for WUSF radio, will present the plaque to renowned trombonist Wycliffe Gordon.

Among the many musicians making repeat appearances are three previous Satchmo winners–Dick Hyman, Ken Peplowski and John Lamb—as well as Wycliffe Gordon, Howard Alden, Russell Malone, Byron Stripling, the Old Souls, the Billy Marcus Trio with Don Mopsick, Stephen Bucholtz, Ken Loomer, Marc Mannino and the musicians playing for the jazz trolley and pub crawl. New to Jazz Club audiences are Latin jazz guitarist Diego Figueiredo, the Naples Jazz Orchestra, the State College of Florida Jazz Ensemble, Chuck Bergeron and John Yarling.

The Jazz Club is offering Special VIP Patron Packages that grant privileges throughout the Festival: admission and preferred seating for all concerts; a ticket for the Jazz Trolley & Pub Crawl; admission to a V.I.P. Cocktail Party; backstage passes; and a Festival tee shirt.

Admission & Ticketing:

• Jazz in the Park: Free. Reservations are not needed.

• Special V.I.P. Patron Packages: Jazz Club members $175; Guests $225. Available ONLY through the Jazz Club office.*

• 18th Annual Jazz Trolley & Pub Crawl to venues in downtown Sarasota. Advance sales $15 from the Jazz Club office*; $20 at event.

• Evening Concerts are held in the Riverview Performing Arts Center, 1 Ram Way (2452 Proctor Rd., Sarasota, FL 34231). Tickets are available online at brownpapertickets.com and by phone at 800.838.3006. Prices vary by concert and are listed with each event.

*Jazz Club office: To learn more about the Sarasota Jazz Festival, the Jazz Club of Sarasota and memberships, visit http://jazzclubsarasota.org/, e-mail [email protected]  or phone 941.366.1552 (Wednesday through Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Monday-Friday during Festival Week).

The Jazz Club of Sarasota was founded in 1980 to promote, preserve, perform and educate people about jazz, the original American art form. It is one of the liveliest, toe-tappingest groups in town, providing great jazz concerts and community programs for jazz lovers everywhere, especially on Florida’s West Coast. 

 The Jazz Cruise is the major sponsor for the 36^th Annual Sarasota Jazz Festival. The festival is also sponsored in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues. The Harold and Evelyn R. Davis Memorial Foundation sponsors the Satchmo Award.

36th ANNUAL SARASOTA JAZZ FESTIVAL

PRESENTED BY THE JAZZ CLUB OF SARASOTA

Festival Schedule with Brief Musician Bios

Further information for all Festival events is available at www.jazzclubsarasota.org

Sunday, March 6: Jazz in the Park • FREE Outdoor Concert with three bands, 12-4 p.m.; Phillippi Estate Park, 5500 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34231

Musicians young and not-so-young perform in big bands and small combos, bringing polished, masterful performances bursting with exuberance and vitality regardless of their ages.

• State College of Florida Jazz Ensemble with Marc Mannino, Director. Mannino will lead two groups, the Little Big Band (12 musicians) and the SCF Jazz Ensemble Big Band (18 musicians). Guitarist Mannino is the director of jazz studies at SCF. This graduate of the Florida State University College of Music is a lifelong music educator, veteran of the United States Air Force bands and performer at major jazz and community festivals. He has been the guitarist for Florida productions of numerous touring Broadway shows. Mannino was also guitarist for the Sarasota Opera Company’s production of “Otello” and “Barber of Seville” and for Broadway stars Idina Menzel at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach and Bernadette Peters at the Rudy Diamond Auditorium in Tallahassee.

• The Old Souls Jazz Sextet. The exceptional talent of these young people has won Jazz Club Scholarships for most of them, and all have been frequent performers for the Club. Some also cut their musical chops as members of Jazz Juvenocracy, playing in international festivals while still in high school. Performers are Bit Risner, trumpet & vocals; Liston Gregory, piano; Jose Villalpando, bass; John Medico, drums; Patrick Daut, guitar; and Alex Hernandez, tenor sax. 

• The Ken Loomer Jazz Big Band. Drummer Ken Loomer leads this 15-piece contemporary band of hard-swinging musicians in original arrangements as well as music from the Great American Songbook. He has performed with prestigious musicians including the Tommy Dorsey Big Band under Warren Covington, Connie Haines and Kenny Drew Jr. He was also house drummer for eight years at the Jazz Cellar in Ybor City. Ken currently plays with local bands and tours with national acts.

Food & Beverages available for purchase • Gourmet Food Trucks Onsite • No Coolers, Please

Admission: FREE • Parking FREE • Bring blankets and chairs.

Tuesday, March 8, Evening Concert: The Naples Jazz Orchestra with Trumpet Virtuoso & Vocalist Byron Stripling, 7:30 p.m., Riverview Performing Arts Center**

The Naples Jazz Orchestra, a big band in the tradition of the legendary bands of Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, and Buddy Rich, teams with Byron Stripling, a newer presence on the scene who is also becoming legendary. Stripling and the NJO have teamed before and NJO musical director Bob Stone is excited about the coming concert, which he calls “a powerhouse event.” Stone brings decades of experience as a jazz drummer, having performed with more than 80 headliners including Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Lionel Hampton, Harry James, and the Four Freshmen. He headed the Bob Stone Big Band in Chicago from 1976 to 1989. He has also taught jazz performance in schools and at the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Camp.

Trumpeter and vocalist Byron Stripling has soloed with many leading symphony orchestras in the nation. He was also featured soloist at the Hollywood Bowl and on the PBS television special “Evening at Pops” with conductors John Williams and Keith Lockhart. Formerly the lead trumpeter and soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra under Thad Jones and Frank Foster, Stripling has played and recorded extensively with the bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Woody Herman, Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry, Louis Bellson and Buck Clayton as well as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band and GRP All-Star Big Band. He is currently artistic director and conductor of the Columbus Jazz Orchestra.

Admission: Jazz Club members $25; Guests $35; Students Free (at the door)

Tickets: 1.800.838.3006 http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2475587

Information: jazzclubsarasota.org or the Jazz Club office*

Wednesday, March 9: 18th Annual Jazz Trolley & Pub Crawl, 6-10:30 p.m., Downtown Sarasota

Hop on and off the very popular Sarasota Jazz Trolley, a resounding success since its introduction in 1998. Jazz lovers can join in the spirit of fun and camaraderie as they move from club to club and enjoy music by some of the area’s top musicians. The lineup of venues and performers includes: Blue Rooster— Synia Carroll • Gator Club—Skip Conkling •  Salute’s—Al Hixon •  Mandeville Beer Garden—Matt Bokulic •  Sarasota Wine Bar & Bistro—Brenda Watty •  Servando’s—David Pruyn  •  The Starlite Room—Steve Roiland

Admission: Advance $15 from Jazz Club office*; $20 at event. Information: Jazz Club office.*

Thursday, March 10, Evening Concert: Diego Figueiredo & Ken Peplowski play “Samba Jazz” with Chuck Bergeron & John Yarling, 7:30 p.m., Riverview Performing Arts Center**  

The 1962 recording “Jazz Samba” (Verve) was the first major bossa-nova album in this country and has since become a classic. Young guitarist Diego Figueiredo and acclaimed reedman Ken Peplowski reprise this historic album in their tribute to the famous Charlie Byrd-Stan Getz Latin jazz collaboration. They are joined by Chuck Bergeron, string bass, and John Yarling on drums. Figueiredo and Peplowski will be introduced by Ellen Bick Asmussen, an American author, poet, literary critic and wife of noted jazz violinist Svend Asmussen, a Jazz Club favorite performer. Among her books, Ellen Asmussen wrote Svend’s biography, June Nights, in 2005.

As he fuses Brazilian music and jazz, Diego Figueiredo demonstrates the superb technique, timing and imagination that have made him a fast-rising star among the world’s great jazz guitarists. He has performed in more than 50 countries and released 20 CDS, 3 DVDs and a book. Figueiredo has twice been honored at the Montreux Jazz Festival as one of the greatest guitarists in the world.

“Ken Peplowski is arguably the greatest living jazz clarinetist,” said Russell Davies (BBC2, August 2013). What’s not arguable is the versatility, verve and outright pizzazz Peplowski brings to various forms of jazz, whether Dixieland, avant-garde or something along the way. The Jazz Club of Sarasota longtime favorite and 2014 Satchmo winner played his first professional engagement while in elementary school and has yet to stop—nor would anyone want him to. Ken moved to New York in 1980 with his clarinet and tenor saxophone and was soon performing steadily. Often compared favorably with Benny Goodman, he was a member of Goodman’s last band. He has worked and recorded with such respected musicians as Hank Jones, George Shearing, Peggy Lee, Mel Torme, Howard Alden, Charlie Byrd, Milt Hinton, Dick Hyman and Kenny Davern. Ken has played at the Hollywood Bowl, Las Vegas and festivals around the world. He has also played on soundtracks for Woody Allen movies and recorded some 50 CDs as soloist and close to 400 as a sideman.

Bassist and composer Chuck Bergeron leads the South Florida Jazz Orchestra and plays in the Shelly Berg Trio. This professor at Miami’s Frost School of Music has released six CDs of his own compositions and has won three ASCAP Writers Awards. He is Professor of Jazz Bass and Jazz History at the University of Miami’s, and also currently performs as a member of the Shelly Berg Trio. Percussionist John Yarling is a lecturer at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. His professional resume includes performances and recordings with luminaries in the worlds of jazz, rock and other genres.

Admission: Jazz Club members $30; Guests $40; Students Free (at the door).
Tickets: 1.800.838.3006, http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2475603.

Information: jazzclubsarasota.org or Jazz Club office*

Friday, March 11 Evening Concert: DownBeat Winner Wycliffe Gordon and the Billy Marcus Trio with Don Mopsick and Stephen Bucholtz, 7:30 p.m.; Presentation of 2016 Satchmo Award to Wycliffe Gordon, Riverview Performing Arts Center**

Wycliffe Gordon is “a versatile trombonist who can sound like a New Orleans jazz veteran, a plunger-mute specialist from the 1930s, a gospel player, or a modern jazz improviser,” according to JazzTimes. He has been honored with the ASCAP Plus Award 2015 and DownBeat magazine‘s Critics Choice Award for two separate instruments: “Best Trombone” for three consecutive years (2012 thru 2014) and “Rising Star Award” for tuba (2014). In addition the Jazz Journalists Association granted him its award as Trombonist of the Year for 2013, 2012, 2011, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2002, 2001 and also gave him its Critics’ Choice Award for Best Trombone in 2000. Besides trombone, Gordon also plays trumpet, euphonium, tuba and didgeridoo, and often takes a spirited vocal. This is a superb performer at the top of his game.

Gordon began playing trombone at 12 and was discovered by Wynton Marsalis while attending a college workshop. Eventually he joined both the Wynton Marsalis Septet and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in 1989, becoming one of the most impressive of Marsalis’ sidemen and alumni. He has also worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Tommy Flanagan, Shirley Horn, Joe Henderson, Eric Reed, Randy Sandke and Branford Marsalis, plus many other top players from the swing and trad jazz world. In addition, Gordon is a prolific composer. He wrote a new score for Oscar Micheaux’s 1925 Paul Robeson silent film Body and Soul as well as the score for Micheaux’s historic 1920 silent film Within Our Gates. He is currently working on several commissioned works for Jazzmobile and City of Columbus. He tours the world with his quartet and appears at many modern and classic jazz festivals.

One of the nation’s foremost music educators, Wycliffe has held positions at Juilliard School of Music and Michigan State School of Music. He currently serves on the faculty of the Jazz Studies Program at Manhattan School of Music. He is regularly featured as guest faculty teacher clinician and conductor for many state

festivals, the Louis Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp, the International Trombone Festival and countless other high school and university programs. He is also a prolific composer of jazz and gospel music who has recorded over 20 CDs of his own, many on his own label Blues Back Records. His August 2011 CD honored the 110th birthday of Louis Armstrong. He is a Yamaha Performing Artist.

The Jazz Club will present Wycliffe Gordon with the Satchmo Award, its highest honor, at this concert. Bob Seymour, Jazz Director at WUSF Public Broadcasting and an honorary member of the Jazz Club’s board of directors, will make the presentation.

The Satchmo Award, named in honor of Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, is the highest honor of the Jazz Club of Sarasota. The Club initiated the award in 1987 and has since presented it to 30 outstanding individual musicians or groups for “Unique and Enduring Contribution to the Living History of Jazz, Our Original Art Form.” Previous Satchmo winners have included Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Marian McPartland, Dave Brubeck, Dick Hyman and John Lamb as well as music promoter George Wein, Jazz Club founder Hal Davis (former publicist for Benny Goodman) and longtime Jazz Club president Jerry Roucher. The Satchmo award is sponsored by the Harold and Evelyn R. Davis Memorial Foundation in Hal’s honor. Frank Eliscu, designer of the Heisman Trophy, designed the award plaque for the Satchmo.

Billy Marcus, jazz pianist, began his professional career in 1968 in the Boston-Cape Cod area and worked with the late great Bobby Hackett. He moved to Miami in 1974, where Miami/South Florida Magazine named him “Miami’s Best Musician.” His extensive career has included performances on radio and television as well as in recording studios, upscale clubs and hotels, concert halls and festivals around the world. Billy has worked with such legendary figures as Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins among numerous others.

Don Mopsick is perhaps best known for his 19 years with Jim Cullum’s Riverwalk Jazz. Drummer Stephen Bucholtz, a favorite performer in the Tampa Bay area, has recorded with Nate Najar, Carl Amundson and Twang Dragons.

Admission: Jazz Club members $30; Guests $40; Students Free (at the door).
Tickets: 1.800.838.3006, http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2475627.

Information: http://www.jazzclubsarasota.org or the Jazz Club office*

Saturday, March 12, Evening Concert: Jazz All-Stars–Dick Hyman, Howard Alden, John Lamb, Russell Malone & Special Surprise Guest, 7:30 p.m., Riverview Performing Arts Center**

This concert promises to be extraordinary with four of today’s most acclaimed jazz musicians and a surprise guest. The versatile Dick Hyman performs with legendary bassist John Lamb and two guitarists—Howard Alden and Russell Malone–who have each been hailed as among the world’s greatest.

Dick Hyman has often been called a musical chameleon. From the beginning of his busy musical career in the early ’50s, he has played in virtually every known musical style and functioned in numerous capacities, as pianist, organist, arranger, music director, and composer. His versatility has resulted in film scores, orchestral compositions, concert appearances and well over 100 albums recorded under his own name. While developing a masterful facility for improvisation in his own piano style, Hyman has also investigated ragtime and the earliest periods of jazz, researching and recording the piano music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson, Zez Confrey, Eubie Blake and Fats Waller, which he features in his frequent recitals. In a very different vein, he was one of the first to record on the Moog synthesizer, and his Minotaur landed on the Billboard charts. He also

had a prolific career as a studio musician, won two Emmys, orchestrated Broadway’s Sugar Babies and was composer/arranger/conductor/pianist for Moonstruck, ten Woody Allen films, and other movies.

His numerous compositions include chamber music, concertos, ballets and his Ragtime Fantasy. With Sarasota’s choral group Gloria Musicae he premiered a cantata based on the autobiography of Mark Twain and his more recent Bottle It Up. Arbors Records released Dick Hyman’s Century of Jazz Piano, an encyclopedic series of solo performances, and Hal Leonard Music has published a transcription of it. Other newer recordings are with clarinetist Ken Peplowski, singer Heather Masse and Dick’s daughter, violinist Judy Hyman. He is a member of the Jazz Hall of Fame of the Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and the New Jersey Jazz Society. He is a Yamaha artist.

“Howard Alden may be the best of his generation,” writes Owen Cordle in JazzTimes. In 2009 DownBeat recognized him as a “Modern Maestro and one of DownBeat’s “75 Great Guitarists.” Born in 198, Alden began playing at 10, inspired by recordings of Armstrong, Basie and Goodman as well as Barney Kessel, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt and George Van Eps. He worked professionally around Los Angeles until 1979, when he moved east and played for several years with Red Norvo. A move to New York City in 1982 brought him work as both soloist and accompanist for appearances and recordings with such artists as Joe Bushkin, Ruby Braff, Joe Williams, Warren Vaché and Woody Herman. He has continued to win accolades from critics and musicians alike. His credits include work with past Benny Carter, Flip Phillips, Mel Powell, Bud Freeman, Kenny Davern, Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, George Van Eps and notable contemporaries such as Scott Hamilton and Ken Peplowski. Alden has been a Concord Jazz recording artist since the late ’80s, with a prolific recorded output as leader, co-leader, and versatile sideman of consistently astonishing virtuosity and originality.

In 1991 Alden recorded with seven-string guitar master George Van Eps on the album “Thirteen Strings” and has been playing the seven-string guitar since 1992. Subsequent recordings with Van Eps, Ken Peplowski, Frank Wess and other respected musicians generated critical acclaim, as did his playing in the Woody Allen movie Sweet and Lowdown, which brought Sean Penn an Academy Award nomination for his role as a legendary jazz guitarist. He was voted “Best Emerging Talent-Guitar” in the first annual JazzTimes critics’ poll, 1990, and “Talent Deserving Wider Recognition” in the 1996, 1992, 1993 and 1995 DownBeat critics’ poll.

John Lamb is “a virtuoso performer bassist who performed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for more than ten years,” according to All About Jazz. The authoritative website says, “His extraordinary musical talent can be heard on most of the Duke’s major works from the mid-’60’s, including ‘The Far East Suite’ which earned a Grammy.” The renowned double bassist began playing in 1951, joined the Ellington Orchestra in 1964 and toured with them for three years. He was part of a trio, along with pianist Ellington and drummer Sam Woodyard, that played for artist Joan Miró at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1966. Lamb later moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, where he taught music in public schools and St. Petersburg College. One of his students was bassist Alphonso Johnson, an influential figure since the early ’70s. Lamb is a favorite of Jazz Club audiences and the 2013 recipient of the Club’s prestigious Satchmo Award.

After hearing Russell Malone’s solo performance of “Remind Me” on Playground in a DownBeat Blindfold Test, influential guitarist said, “Obviously we are in the capable hands of a master.” He is not alone in his high opinion. Russell Malone is considered one of the signature guitar players of his generation. The leader of ten albums since 1992, he is as well-known on the international circuit for his world-class quartet and trio as for his long-stranding participation in Ron Carter’s Golden Striker Trio and recent contributions to the musical production of the likes of Sonny Rollins and Diane Reeves. Malone is a master of all tempos, a relentless swinger he spins his stories with a soulful, recognizable instrumental voice and seasons

them with sophisticated harmonies that are never “too hip for the room.” Malone‘s influences range from swing to R&B and he has an appealing bop-oriented approach that often pays tribute to earlier styles.

This fine guitarist started playing music when he was five and gained attention with his Columbia records of the early to mid-’90s. He was with Jimmy Smith‘s band for two years in the late ’80s and since 1989 has often toured with Harry Connick, Jr. He first appeared with the Jazz Club of Sarasota some two decades ago. We’re always happy to have him back.

Admission: Jazz Club members $35; Guests $45; Students Free (at the door).

Tickets: 800.838.3006, http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2475635.

Information: www.jazzclubsarasota.org or the Jazz Club office*

Special V.I.P. Patron Packages

The Jazz Club is offering Special V.I.P. Patron Packages that provide:

• Admission and preferred seating for all festival concerts.

• A ticket for Jazz Trolley & Pub Crawl.

• V.I.P. Cocktail Party on Saturday, March 12, before the closing concert, at Mattison’s Forty-One Restaurant (7275 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, FL 34231).

• A backstage pass good for each event, subject to scheduling and time available.

• A Festival tee shirt.

Tickets: Jazz Club members $175; Guests $225. Available ONLY through the Jazz Club office.*  

*Jazz Club office: 941.366.1552 (Wed.-Fri., 9-5; Festival Week: Mon.-Fri., 9-5) or [email protected]

**Riverview High School Performing Arts Center: 1 Ram Way (2452 Proctor Rd., Sarasota, FL 34231, off Proctor Road between South Tamiami Trail & Swift Road). Complimentary valet parking is available.

The Jazz Club of Sarasota was founded in 1980 to promote, preserve, perform and educate people about jazz, the original American art form. It is one of the liveliest, toe-tappingest groups in town, providing great jazz concerts and community programs for jazz lovers everywhere, and especially on Florida’s West Coast. 

The Jazz Cruise is the major sponsor for the 36^th Annual Sarasota Jazz Festival. The festival is also sponsored in part by Sarasota County Tourist Development Tax Revenues. The Harold and Evelyn R. Davis Memorial Foundation sponsors the Satchmo Award.